The School Bus Mess

[wiseoldred]

It now appears that the Department of Education are trying to phase out concessionary tickets from the School Transport Scheme. Following a meeting last week with the VEC CEOs and CIE the dept said that anyone who had a ticket last year would have one this year. They have conceeded that this means that 1st year students are not longer to be issued concessionary tickets. The dept has also said that this is their final position on the matter. If this is so then in five or six years no student who lives outside the catchment area of a school will be able to use the school bus to get to school and the removal of parental choice.
How do people feel about this?

P.S Does anyone have any contacts with people who are involved in the campaign to sort out this mess. Is so could you please PM me with their details as we are just staring what will be a very active campaign in the SE region and what to set up a regional network.

[Dáiler]

What you seem to be missing is an understanding of the word concession. Students outside the catchment area were given concessionary tickets and now that there is no longer room on the bus that concession has been withdrawn. As regards parental choice that still exists except if you choose to send your child to a school outside the catchment area then you must make your own arrangements for their travel.

[wiseoldred]

What you seem to be missing is an understanding of the word concession. Students outside the catchment area were given concessionary tickets and now that there is no longer room on the bus that concession has been withdrawn. As regards parental choice that still exists except if you choose to send your child to a school outside the catchment area then you must make your own arrangements for their travel.

I fully understand what concession means thank you. It is obvious that you dont really understand what the issue is here so let me enlighten you.

Before I start to explain I must first point out that this is an issue that is effecting on people in rural areas. People who live in towns and cities are not effected by this at all as they can use the local public transport system if one exists or in most case where the town is small enough, walk to school.
Anyway.
First off. Catchment areas were introduced around 67 or 68 to set up feeder areas for VEC ran schools. The thinking been that each school would have its own specfic area with the county from which it would take its students. If you lived in a particular area and wanted to attend a VEC school then you had to do so in the school in your area. This system works very well for VEC ran schools as they all offer the same range of subjects and it would make little or no difference what school you were directed to attend.
However for voluntary schools i.e CBS etc.. this breaks down. Voluntary schools offer a wide range of choices and it is fair to say that very few voluntary schools offer identical range of subjects and career paths. They also have a much better record in feeding students to third level colleges. If a student or parent of a student wants to send/attend a voluntary school the trouble starts.
The majority of voluntary schools are based in urban areas where as VEC ran schools are spread across the county. Because of the nature of the catchment areas and there location a large number of students are forced to attend the school of their choice which is outside of the catchment are in which they live.
This is best explained by a typical example.
County Wexford is divided into 8 catchment areas. At the centre of each of these areas is a VEC ran school. Students who wish to attend a Vocational School or College have to attend the school in their area and this makes perfect sense in the vast majority of cases.
However the county is divided into 4 electoral areas around the four main towns and almost all the voluntary schools in the county are based in these towns. So if the same student wants to attend a voluntary school say in New Ross but is in the Ramsgrange VEC school catchment area then that student will be considered to be outside of catachment. The total distance between New Ross and Ramsgrange is 12 miles or so and the catchment area for Ramsgrange comes as close as 7 miles to New Ross.
The parent and the student, because they regard New Ross as their local town and due to the proximity in which they live to the town, will not consider New Ross to be an unreasonable town to send their children to school in. They are also not asking to send their child to a VEC ran school, of which there is one in the town, but a voluntary school of their choice which they feel best suits the needs of their child.
However the DSE says that because New Ross is outside of their catchment area they are considered concessionary students.

Concessionary tickets are still been issued after all the eligible students (students who live inside the catchment are of the school they are applying for the ticket for) have been issued their tickets. This has not changed. What has changed is that if a student did not have a ticket last year then they will not be issued one for this year. This obviously means all First Year students. If this remains the case then it will mean first and second year students next year and so on untill no concessionary tickets are been issed at all in 5 years.

In all of this they are three main issues.
1. Parents have the right to decide what school their child attends under Art 42.3.1. Given that we live in an era where both parents now by and large are working and dependant on the school transport system to get their children to school they have to be allowed to make that choice based on their individual circumstances. They are not asking for buses from their front doors. Or buses to take their children to a school forty or fifty miles away. All they are asking for is that the bus system that took their children to school last year does so this year. At the moment parents all across the country are having to take time off work or depending on grand parents and friends to get their children to school.

2. Catachment areas are totally out of date and need to be reviewed and applied for the reason they were setup which was to feed VEC schools. They have no revelance to Voluntary schools and different arrangements have to be made for students attending these schools. It makes perfect sense that the main town in any electoral area should have the whole of that electoral area as the catchment area for the voluntary schools in the town.

3. The cost of addressing this issue to the gov has been put at as little as 2 mil. Why put parents and children through so much hardship and worry for so little money when you compare the cost to some of the things that the gov are spending money on. Storing E-Voting machines that will never be used springs to mind straight away but they are many others.

I dont expect you to agree with me on this as it is rare to find anyone agreeing with anything on this site lately but at least you now have a clear picture of the issue.